Ep 736 - Consider the Consequences!, by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Ep 736 – Consider the Consequences! by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins

Date: January 5, 2026
Hosts: Craig & Andrew
Podcast Theme: Reviewing books you’ve been meaning to read—one per week, from beloved classics to obscure finds.

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Episode Overview

Craig and Andrew kick off the new year by revisiting one of their favorite odd literary formats: the early interactive gamebook. Consider the Consequences! (1930), written by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins, is touted as the first published interactive novel with branching choices—a precursor to “Choose Your Own Adventure.” In this episode, recorded live with Patreon supporters, the hosts play through the book, discuss the history of gamebooks, and explore its three main narrative perspectives: Helen, Jed, and Saunders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. History and Context of the Book [06:26–08:33]

• Consider the Consequences! (1930) is probably the earliest known English-language interactive fiction book, preceding the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series by several decades.
• The gamebook genre began to coalesce stylistically in the late 1960s to 1970s. Examples include E.W. Hildick’s Lucky Les (1967) and the Adventures of You series by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery.
• Recent renewed interest—reprints, radio adaptations, and digital ports—surfaced around 2018–2023. Pushkin Press has reissued the book.
• The book entered the U.S. public domain in early 2025.

“This is considered to be the first published interactive game book narrative with choices inside of it.” (Craig, 06:38)

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2. Authors’ Biographies & Their “Party Books” [11:48–19:37]

• Mary Alden Hopkins: Journalist, suffragist, Wellesley & Columbia-educated, active in the Women’s Peace Party (antiwar, WWI). Her outspoken writing led to allegations of treason.
• Doris Webster: Less info is known; she co-wrote several books with Hopkins and also co-authored a romance novel with her husband.
• The pair produced a series of "party books"—intended as conversation starters and parlor activities at social gatherings. Titles include I've Got Your Number, Marriage Made Easy, and Dynamite; or, What Do People Think About You?
• Notable concept lines from Dynamite:

  “Keep away from this book if you are afraid to take the risk of having your convictions shaken...”

• The books often blur the line between game, personality test, and advice manual.

Memorable Quote:

“[Party books were] like Cranium for the millennials in the early 2010s... Just what you did at a party was crack open one of these books.” (Andrew, 16:04)

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3. Critical Reception in the 1930s [20:10–22:15]

• Mixed reactions: Some dismissed the book as “not literature,” better suited for parlor games than literary merit.

• Others praised the book’s interactive elements:

  “If the denouement doesn't please, it's one's own fault.” —Salt Lake Tribune

• The hosts poke fun at stuffiness:

  “You ever want to take a dead guy and just be like, hey, just relax, dude.” (Andrew, 20:57)

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4. Gameplay: Navigating the Book's Three Narratives [26:55+]

• The book is organized into three main tracks: Helen, Jed, Saunders—each with its own branching journey and endings.
• Craig and Andrew set up live polls so Patreon listeners could guide which character to follow and which choices to make.

Key Narrative & Choices: Helen’s Story [30:16–53:01]

• Helen: In love with unreliable Jed, encouraged by family to consider steady (boring) Saunders.

• Choice: Defy her family to marry Jed (the “bad boy”) or marry prudent Saunders (“the drip”)?
  Community poll leans Jed.

• Through a cascade of choices (eloping, living with Jed’s overbearing mother, Jed’s decline and death, poverty, remarriage opportunity to Saunders), the hosts marvel at the relatably uncomfortable consequences.

• The narrative highlights:

  • The limited agency women held.
  • How time jumps swiftly (a marriage or a child can occur between paragraphs).

• Memorable moment: On Helen's first wedding anniversary with Saunders, debating whether she should go have fun with her current husband, or grieve at her first husband’s grave.

  “Don’t editorialize to me, Consider the Consequences. I’m gonna go out with my husband!” (Andrew, 51:30)

• Ending for Helen:
  Marrying Saunders and choosing joy (taking off mourning) leads to discovering she’s happier than expected.

  “Having a good time was part of a wife’s duty.” (Read aloud, 52:36)

Key Narrative & Choices: Jed’s Story [54:04–71:32]

• Jed: Wealthy, charming, weak-willed, pressured by his mother. Timeline seems to cover relationships prior to Helen.
• Poll decision: Marry Gwen (his lover) after an affair leads to pregnancy.
• Rapid descent: Jed struggles in lower-class life, fails as a provider, relationship with Gwen dissolves, mother pressures for divorce.
• Jed’s talent (painting) emerges as he flees to Europe. He falls for Marion, a career-driven woman.
• Key decision: Follow Marion to New York (give up Paris art scene), or remain in France?
• Optimal Ending:
  Marries Marion, who balances career and family, Jed finds success painting Canadian glaciers.

  “Jed was the type of man who is ruined or saved by his wife.” (Read aloud, 69:54)

Key Narrative & Choices: Saunders’s Story [72:11–90:40]

• Saunders: Dependable, responsibility thrust upon him. Entirely non-romantic narrative, revolves around family business, loans to his brilliant brother Alfred, and civic involvement.
• Choices veer into town politics and corruption—a far cry from romantic angst.
• Key choice: Participate in low-level graft to secure his brother’s future as an architect, or refuse and risk everything.
• Deciding to go along with the corruption leads to a spiral: family scandal, regret, and eventual financial hardship.

  “To make a success in crime, one must put one’s whole soul into it as one must into any profession. People raised to be honest would better resign themselves to remaining honest.” (Read aloud, 90:40)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the book's moralizing:

  “The lesson of this book so far is that these three people are at their best when they have nothing to do with each other.” (Andrew, 75:37)

• On period gender roles:

  “So Jed died of being a delicate little flower!” (Craig, 43:47)

• About party books as entertainment:

  “Welcome to my party where I just hold a mirror up to you. Get ready.” (Craig, 19:10)

• On party game audience:

  “If this is a party book, who's at the party? ... What is the class of the people at the party and what fun are they having at the expense of the characters?” (Craig, 73:02)

• Summing up the experience:

  “Glad for Jed that we found a woman who had the perfect combination of masculine qualities and other stuff for him to drip by.” (Andrew, 93:20)

• On the heft of Saunders’s plot:

  “I was told I would be considering consequences. I guess I did not know what kind of consequences I would be considering.” (Andrew, 82:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Book/Gamebook History & Context: 06:26–08:33
• Author Biographies & Party Book Phenomenon: 11:48–19:37
• Contemporary Critical Reception: 20:10–22:15
• Setting Up the Game (Character selection): 26:55–30:16
• Helen’s Narrative Playthrough: 30:16–53:01
• Jed’s Narrative Playthrough: 54:04–71:32
• Saunders’s Narrative Playthrough: 72:11–90:40

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Reflection & Closing Thoughts

• The hosts express surprise at how much more varied (and sometimes more serious) the consequences are compared to modern gamebooks.
• Each character’s arc seems almost hermetically sealed from the others, with few crossovers.
• Helen’s section highlighted limited female agency, Jed's explored the consequences of privileged fecklessness, and Saunders tackled the perils of well-intentioned compromise.
• The episode concludes that, although the book is a novelty, it offers “tonal whiplash” and unexpected insight into gender, class, and moral choices—just not always at parties.

Final thought:

“I might be inexorably drawn back to this book to just kind of play it on my own... It told me that I'm allowed, so I might go back and do that.” (Andrew, 95:57)

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Next Episode: Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (“Marple Madness!”—first Miss Marple book to enter the public domain)

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For more, including their upcoming schedule, visit overduepodcast.com and consider joining the Patreon at patreon.com/overduepod.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[B]

Don't I know it?

[A]

Every new year I say I will get better at it. But life gets busy and next thing you know, I'm back to ordering takeout.

[B]

I'm always saying this to you is Craig, you're back to ordering takeout again.

[A]

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[B]

Andrew, feta salad.

[A]

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[B]

Okay, so you've just finished an amazing book. You laughed, you cried, you told all.

[A]

Your friends about it.

[B]

But you're not ready to be done talking about it yet because you have a million questions for the author. Here's where I might be able to help. I'm Mattea Roach, and on my podcast bookends, I ask authors all your burning questions. Like why is John Green obsessed with tuberculosis? And why did Taylor Jenkins Reid want to bring her latest love story to outer space?

[A]

You can check out bookends with Mattea.

[B]

Roach on your favorite podcast app. This is a headgum podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy.

[A]

Of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[B]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[A]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Welcome to Overdue, a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[B]

My name is Andrew.

[A]

And here we are. It is December, sort of 27th. We are recording this at the end of the calendar year 2025, a fine year that no one has any complaints about.

[B]

Somebody told Henry about the 12 days of Christmas. And now every day this kid's telling me what day of Christmas it is. Because it's the first one is. The first one is Christmas. Right? That's how it works.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. So today was the third day of Christmas, he told me. So it is, you know, it's still. We're still working on it.

[A]

Simon has coined the term New Year's Week. He's been referring to it as New Year's week coming.

[B]

What is he. What is the Amazon? Was Amazon trying to come up with a new shopping holiday?

[A]

Gabe Newell running a video game sales New Year's week over here.

[B]

New Year's week.

[A]

But this is our podcast where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. And as is our want, we're gonna break that structure every now and again. And this week we are dipping into the public domain. The domain of the public with one of our favorite.

[B]

One of my favorite domains with.

[A]

With a game book of sorts. Also joining us here in the domain of the public is the public.

[B]

Hello, public.

[A]

Some of our illustrious Patreon supporters.

[B]

By public you do mean the strictly money gated, like the. What's the gated community of people that we invite to our street.

[A]

Yep, it has a name and everything.

[B]

Yeah, the public.

[A]

But welcome. You can join the public here here@overdue po patreon.com overdue pod in the new year if you so choose they they might help us make some decisions. Who knows? We'll see. Andrew we love to read books where we make decisions. We do inside of them.

[B]

Because I like making decisions so much in my everyday life that I was like what if on my podcast I got to make more of them in front of people.

[A]

So on this week's episode to kick off 2026, we are going to discuss and then read selections of as we make choices within, we're going to play the game book. Consider the consequences. Now, my edition does not have the exclamation point, but it many like I.

[B]

Believe the so the from the reading that I did, the original dust jacket did not have the exclamation oh on it. And it was only once you took the dust jacket off that the exclamation point reveals itself, revealed itself.

[A]

The tease this is a book by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins. It is considered to be the first published interactive game book narrative with choices inside of it. I don't know if that's truly true, but maybe Andrew has some ideas. I'm not sure.

[B]

I only like this one is usually the earliest dated one that people the people know about it. It's 1930 and even though it does not I don't think have all of the like stylistic things that we would expect from a modern choose your own adventure book. That stuff mostly pops up later in the late 60s into the 70s before choose your own adventure itself like coalesces in the late 70s into the 80s. But yeah, this was my notes are really good.

[A]

This is this is published in 1930, right?

[B]

It's published in 1930. There are several books with branching paths or multiple endings that are published between 1930 and the 60s though. Yeah, as I said, it's only toward the end of the 60s that game books start to gel into a more recognizable form. You've got E.W. hildik's Lucky Less in 1967. State of Emergency by Dennis Guerriere and Joan Richards in 1969. Betty or Nilsson's Swedish language the mysterious bag happens in 1970.

[A]

I would read that.

[B]

That I know. And Marie Christine Helgerson's French book Stories as you want them comes out in 1978. These are all contributors to the form. And then Edward Packard and R.A. montgomery, our pals, team up in the late 70s with the Adventures of you series, which then becomes the choose your own adventure series that we know and love and have occasionally exchanged emails with.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I don't know. Like, based on nothing but vibes. I feel like everybody simultaneously was like, remember when choose your own adventure books were a thing in the year 2018, when that black Mirror Bandersnatch episode came out.

[A]

Okay, so does that.

[B]

That's certainly when the Chusco people became more litigious about enforcing their. When.

[A]

When in the year did that come out?

[B]

I'm not sure when that came out, but there was a there. I'm just so.

[A]

Because in 2018.

[B]

Because in 2018, there's some radio station in California basically did what we're about to do and read this book and let listeners call in and make choices.

[A]

I never played the Twitch Plays Pokemon of its day.

[B]

Did you play. Did you do Bandersnatch? I never did.

[A]

I never. I've never. We should do Bandersnatch.

[B]

I don't know about that. I did play you versus wild.

[A]

We did play you versus.

[B]

The 2019 version based on Bear Grylls is man versus wild, where you can basically kill Bear Grylls with your pet.

[A]

That' all. That's all that it is, is just killing Bear Grylls.

[B]

That's true. But, yeah, modern interest in this book picks up around the same time, kind of late tens into the. Into the early twenties, the Roaring twenties, as we're calling them. A radio. Yeah, I did the radio show in California. Its Wikipedia page appears in 2021, and then in 2023, it's both uploaded to the Internet Archive and ported to the branching storytelling software twine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Available to play online if you want to play it. And then Pushkin Press reissues it in hardcover and paperback, which I believe is.

[A]

The year it entered the public domain.

[B]

I think as a book from 1930, it enters in January.

[A]

I think I could be wrong of this coming year.

[B]

Yeah. Didn't we do a big thing about how it was 1929 that was in the public domain? I don't remember doing that. Wrong. Hold on. I'm gonna look it up.

[A]

Okay, you look it up, because I'm looking at an article from the. The Library of Congress from January 1, 2024. Let me see if it has the words public domain. It does.

[B]

So, okay, so January 1, 2025, is public domain. Day works from 1929 are open to all.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So technically, the center is the public domain in, like, four or five days.

[A]

Okay, sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, then the Library of Congress has it wrong then, because they talk about it in 2020 in January.

[B]

Or. Or there's some weird Stuff with the publication date. I don't know, man. Okay. I'm just doing math over here.

[A]

That's fine. That's fine. But, yes. So it is. It is here for us to enjoy. We are going to play it in. In some form. It does have three sections, so we might need to, like, just arbitrarily jump ahead.

[B]

I believe I have not cracked this. This book, but the first something I did run into during my research is I think the first choice that we make is which one of these three characters do we have it? And they all have their own reality that we create for.

[A]

Okay, well, then I think that might be. I will prep a listener a. Like a viewer poll. So when we're ready for that, do you want to tell us about Mary Alden Hopkins, Andrew? Yeah, Stuff as well. I'll jump in.

[B]

I have a little. Yeah, I mean, I have, like, a sentence. Hopkins was born in 1876, died in 1960. She's an American journalist, writer and editor, and she was also active in the women's suffrage movement. Her Wikipedia page is kind of a mess and makes me want to, like, I don't know, fix it, but parts of. Just feels like it all tumbled out of somebody in no particular order, and it doesn't feel like anyone's paid attention to it a while. But that's. That's. That's. That's most of what you need to know. She. And then Doris Webster was born. There's even less about her. She was born in 1885, died in 1967. And her. The main thing that she is remembered for on the Internet anyway, is that she did six books with Hopkins.

[A]

Well, let me.

[B]

Between 1927 and 1937, before you. She's also the director of Writer Press, and she co authored a book with her husband, Samuel Webster called Uncle James's Shoes, which is apparently a romance novel set in rural America. This is published in 1923 and as such is in the U. S. Public domain. I love it on the Internet Archive. Most of this stuff is.

[A]

Here's what else I have on Hopkins before you dive into their books. Andrew. Yeah, born in Bangor, Maine. I did find some references to her on, like, pages. You know, every state has people who make websites dedicated to vaguely famous people from their state. Accomplished people. We did.

[B]

We did the Booth Tarkington episode this year. That's where. I mean, the main source of information about Booth Tarkington is people from Indiana being like, hey, he was from here. People used to like him.

[A]

Did you say she studied at Wellesley Got her master's at Columbia.

[B]

I didn't say that, but thank you for saying it. Yep.

[A]

And part of the suffrage movement. She was like. The interesting thing that jumped out to me as part of that was she was part of the New York City Women's Peace Party, which was the only segment of the Women's Peace party that opposed U.S. involvement in World War I.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And she wrote some articles that were anti war and they were labeled as traitorous by the doj and thus their publication for Light got shut down. That just reminded me of like, when you think about. I think it was Ulysses. Right. Was the like. Was that the one that was like, can the USPS decide not to transmit copies of a published work because of censorship?

[B]

I do not know.

[A]

I don't remember if it's that or Lolita. Somebody in the chat.

[B]

Correct. I'm just thinking about how she's apparently the Jimmy Kimmel of her day.

[A]

Yep. You know, Free Speech.

[B]

Free Speech Hero.

[A]

Two of her other most noted works, they were the top of her New York Times obituary, were Hannah Moore and Her circle, published in 1947, a biography of Kenyan college's benefactor, Hannah Moore, who's.

[B]

Best known at the college today for being in one of the college songs. And the line is literally also Hannah Moore. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Hannah More was also.

[A]

And when women started at the college in the. In 1969, they finally. When the college allowed women to study there correctly, I think they started a Hannah More society. I think since then we've gone back and read some of Hannah More's stuff and gone. Not sure about that. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, thank. Yes. Also that of Hannah Moore. Yes. Silas in the chat knows what's up. And also, people always want to talk.

[B]

About studying abroad, but people never want to talk about broad studying. You know, when the broads do the studying also. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah Moore. Thank you. Kenyon College in 1969.

[A]

Dr. Johnson's Litchfield in 1952. She several books about England and. And people in it based on her father's library, apparently. And then in the later stages of her life, spent a lot of time restoring and re. Landscaping properties in Connecticut. What a life.

[B]

Great.

[A]

But no. Andrew, tell me about the books that this pair published.

[B]

They did a lot of books in a genre just called party books, where apparently party books, you just take these. You open these books up at a party and they. They function like Cranium did for millennials in. In the early 2010s. It's like this is just what you did at a party as you cracked open one of these books.

[A]

I have not Cranium in a decade and I must have played Cranium like every other month for like three years.

[B]

It was Jackbox before Jackbox entered our lives.

[A]

We were playing Cranium until what's the one that we don't play anymore came out?

[B]

Savannah says apples to apples, cards against humanity is we don't play anymore. Even though they do, they seem cool, but some of their cards are and.

[A]

Some of their people have not been cool over time. Yeah, I felt fine moving on from them.

[B]

And then Jack, they won that lawsuit against Elon Musk for. Yes, he like SpaceX. Like they. Yeah, they bought that vacant lot along the border to prevent the government from building a wall. And then SpaceX moved a bunch of stuff to Texas and just like dumped stuff onto that lot and like redeveloped it and they sued SpaceX and won. And so anybody who sues Elon with a good enough lawyer to win gets a little bit of respect from me. At this point in 2025, what's that.

[A]

Other game that you have that is more malleable, has many more modes than cards against human.

[B]

Oh, the meta game.

[A]

The metagame. Very.

[B]

I like a lot, which is good.

[A]

Yeah, play that instead.

[B]

So yeah, so a lot of. A lot of them were these party books meant to be played in a group of friends, but then there are others that, that are less like that. I'll just read down the list. I've got your number.

[A]

That's their like big claim to fame. Before this one.

[B]

Yeah. Published in 1927. This is considered to be kind of an early personality test book. Yeah, there is a book called Marriage Made Easy which comes out in 1928. I could not find a ton about this one, but based on the title I assume it's pretty self explanatory. Help yourself comes out in 1928. This is a book intended to help young women develop, quote, a good collection of bows. Now this is not bows like ribbons. This is bows like suitors. The reasons why you would want a good collection of bows, according to the book, which I did read the forward of, quote, they cure the inferiority complex, make you look popular and attract other men. Oh, so please do everybody develop a good collection of bows. Mrs. Grundy is dead in 1930 is billed as, quote, a code of etiquette for young people written by themselves. They're just listed as editors on this one. They would have been 45 and 54 years old at the time. So not young by most people's standards. And then their last collaboration. And then they do consider the consequences also in 1930. And then seven years later, they do their last one, which is called Dynamite or what do people think about you? Sort of personality test book meant to encourage self reflection and discussion. This is from the foreword, which I also tracked down and read. Quote, keep away from this book. If you are afraid to take the risk of having your conviction shaken, your inconsistencies shot to pieces, your opinions blasted, and your prejudices blown sky high, you may find yourself sitting among the ruins of your egotism.

[A]

I love this. I love party books like this. I love party.

[B]

I'm gonna rip you inside out. Like this is. This party is gonna change your life.

[A]

This rules. Look, here's a mirror. Welcome to my party where I just hold a mirror up to you. Get ready.

[B]

The another line in the forward that I liked. I'm just gonna paraphrase a little bit, but it was like, if you're upset, is it because people don't know you or because people actually have clocked you? Exactly. Consider that before you get mad at us.

[A]

Is what the forward is saying good?

[B]

Yeah, that's what. That's what I've got.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It doesn't seem like most of these have had the modern resurgence of Consider the consequences. You can find a bunch of them on the Internet Archive. You can find a few more peppered on like, various library websites and stuff.

[A]

Sure, sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. The Going back to that Library of Congress article from 2025. They claimed, they said that marriage made Easy, quote, tells you when, why and what to marry and how to go about it. It's an interesting way to put it.

[B]

Slippery slope. That's what it sounds like.

[A]

What?

[B]

What to marry.

[A]

I will share two quick. They're sort of reviews, sort of descriptions of the book from contemporary newspapers from the 1930s. The San Francisco Examiner. Consider the consequences. The new book by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins may give rise to a clever parlor game, but it is decidedly not literature. For the aim of fiction is to create emotion, while the art of the author is to create situations which seem inevitable to his readers, his readers. Interesting. Consider, then, how far afield the versatile young authors have wandered when they present a story which can end in any one of two dozen different ways. As a guessing game, the thing is fascinating. It should be played by a crowd. Not too seriously. Addicted to Belles Lettre.

[B]

You ever want to take a dead guy and just be like, hey, just relax, dude.

[A]

Just relax.

[B]

Just cool it For a second.

[A]

I love how his complaint is like, well, they can't be authors if the book doesn't end in one way.

[B]

Okay, go read Moby Dick, idiot. Just relax. Just relax, dude. There are lots, there are lots of books with just one ending. Most, in fact most of them just have the one ending. Most of them do somebody doing somebody innovating and you choose to criticize them. Interesting. Interesting.

[A]

In the Salt Lake Tribune, someone describes the appeal of this book. Very often in one's reading a character behaves quite differently than one feels he should. The Webster Hopkins novel offers the reader the chance to tell him what to do. At each turning point in the course of its heroes or heroines fortunes, it is left to the reader to choose the road to be followed and the story continues in that channel. Therefore, if the denouement doesn't please, it's one's own fault. I love that.

[B]

I love that you love that. Just being like if you don't like this book and you did it, it's like it's your problem.

[A]

Well, I also like to like you are. You are someone who loves to yell at books because characters are dumb. Like if they make the dumb choice, it's your choice, idiot. That's kind of fun.

[B]

Yeah, I mean but it's also from a, from a short list of pre programmed choices. It's not, it's not, it's not just the choice I'm choosing.

[A]

This isn't second Life.

[B]

I'm choosing the game. I would prefer from the choices presented to me. It's not like a fully open world. I can still go down the wrong street and hit an invisible barrier.

[A]

We all know about the narrative diamond. It's a problem. It's an unsolvable problem.

[B]

Love that diamond, Craig.

[A]

Andrew.

[B]

It's a new year, but our advertisers, some of them are remaining the same.

[A]

I love it.

[B]

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. As ever, they are the website that helps you make websites. They give you templates, they don't make you code. They give you support if you have made a wrong decision.

[A]

Two of my favorite things, not being made to code and getting support. Squarespace 2 for 2.

[B]

Here's some things. I went through Squarespace's talking points and I picked some new, some brand new ones for the new year. New year, new us, new talking points.

[A]

We use Squarespace. Tell me the talking points.

[B]

We use Squarespace and so this is relevant to us. Craig. Squarespace helps you offer services. They give you everything you need to offer services. And get paid all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences. Showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional on brand invoices and online payments. Plus streamline your workflow with built in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Speaking of email marketing tools, they got email campaigns also.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

All the tools you need to engage clients, promote your services and grow your business are built in. Set up email automations to stay connected, nurture leads and save time while seamlessly integrating your offerings into beautifully designed templates that drive bookings and sales. Schedule emails that reach your audience at the perfect time. Keeping your business top of mind and driving long term growth.

[A]

That's important.

[B]

We love small businesses in this. In this version of the Squarespace. Maybe it's just because I was doing our taxes, I got small business.

[A]

We are a small business and we support small businesses.

[B]

We support small businesses, including our own. And none of this is worth anything if you can't measure it. Analytics they got. You can make smarter business decisions. Craig. Yeah, please, please, Craig, make smarter business decisions. I will try Squarespace's intuitive built in analytics tools. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement and track revenue from bookings, invoices or product sales all from one place. If this sounds good to you, go to squarespace.com overdue for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's offer code overdue. Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Hi, I'm Beck Bennett. I thought I was Beck Bennett.

[A]

No, no, no, no.

[B]

It's only Kyle Mooney.

[A]

Yeah, sorry about that.

[B]

Exactly. No, all good. All good. Thanks, buddy. Yeah.

[A]

And we host the show what's our podcast here on Headgum.

[B]

But we want to make sure you heard about a very special episode with a very special guest that we just released. In the feed. Yeah, it's in the feed.

[A]

It was sponsored by Squarespace because they were appalled. They were. That we didn't have a website for our show yet.

[B]

They were like, you don't have a website? What are you guys like kindergarteners?

[A]

They wanted to do something about that. So we built a flawless, beautiful, perfectly designed website live on the pod with our very special guest and very web savvy guest. Should we tell them who it was?

[B]

Let's. We could play 20 questions. I don't think we have time for that. Is it person?

[A]

No, it's not. It's Finn Wolfhard.

[B]

But Finn had a bunch of great.

[A]

Ideas for the website.

[B]

Beck, you had some amazing ideas for the website. Thanks, man.

[A]

You had some amazing ideas.

[B]

Well, I was sort of driving the thing. I was sort of like clicking and. And I was like, let's put a little. Let's put some widgets in there. I was talking about widgets. You kept on using that phrase, widgets.

[A]

Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff there. And you might want to check out the hippo. Just go check out the website.

[B]

Just know that there's a hippo video and know that you're going to want to watch that. We had a lot of fun making this episode. We had a lot of fun making this website. I think you're gonna have a fun time listening to it and maybe watching it. Think of it as our. A little Christmas present to you or.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is a gift for you. Okay. It's just like. It's a selfless thing we did for you.

[B]

Thanks to Squarespace for making us build a website sponsoring the episode and for supporting creators across the headgum network.

[A]

Go check out the bonus episode. What's our website from? What's our podcast on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[B]

Go to squarespace.com beckandkile for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code beckandkyle. Yes, sir.

[A]

To save 10% off your first purchase.

[B]

Of a website, automate it, Kyle.

[A]

But here we are, getting ready to read. Consider the consequences.

[B]

Let's read it. We've never read this before. We have no idea how it's going to go. We have a kind of a formula for the choose your own books. And I don't know that we're gonna. I don't know that any of these people are gonna die. Well, I guess we'll see. Would you like me to read the. The back of the book to get us started? Or how would you like to. Or is there something inside the.

[A]

Why don't you read the back of the book? And as soon as you're done the back of the book, I will start the poll.

[B]

There's Also on page 7A consider the consequences, exclamation point.

[A]

So I'm saying you should read the back of the book. Then I will start the poll, and then by the end of the foreword, we will know whose section we're choosing first.

[B]

Okay? Fantastic. The world's first ever game book. Perfect for a book club. Read along. Playing at a party or simply reading and rereading on Your own Helen finds herself with two competing suitors. There's the irresistible rake, Jed Herringdale, who is wealthy and charming but hopelessly unreliable. And the dependable and devoted Saunders Mead, who thinks the world of Helen but might just be a little tall. To which will Helen give her heart? Perhaps she chooses neither. It's all up to you. And this is only the first decision you'll make as you navigate your way through dilemmas and crises aplenty to one of 43 different endings in this classic interactive romance novel. US 1895 Canadian 2495 ISBN 9781 805-332-626.

[A]

Fiction pushkinpress.com Great, so the poll is running. Okay, I will read the intro here. Consider the consequences, exclamation point. Life is not a continuous line from the cradle to the grave. Rather, it is many short lines, each ending in a choice and branching right and left to other choices, like a bunch of seaweed or a genealogical table. No sooner is one problem solved than you face another growing out of the first. You are to decide the course of action of first Helen, then Jed, then Saunders. At each crisis in their lives. Give your first thought without pausing to ponder. This game may be played as solitaire, a courting game, or a party stunt. When the players disagree, follow the choice of the majority, but make a note of the dissenting opinion. What is that. What is that thing from Quiet Year? Andrew, Take a. Take a.

[B]

Contempt. Contempt tokens. Yeah.

[A]

So that you can return later and find out what happens to Helen or Jed or Saunders when other advice is followed. Okay, the poll is going to close right now.

[B]

We've got 22 votes. I believe that is pretty close to.

[A]

100% and it is 59% Helen, 27% Jed, 14% Saunders. I imagine most of those folks are just voting for the name Saunders, which is pretty good.

[B]

People in the chat honestly seem down on the name Saunders, actually. All right, so we're doing. We're doing Helen, I guess. Page nine.

[A]

Yep. So take it away, bud. Why don't you do the first section.

[B]

Here for people who like the little subway map style mappings of. Of choose your own endings. Helen's choices. I'm just going to show it to the people in the chat now. You get. You get like a little choice tree that show you. Shows you where everything kind of goes and ends.

[A]

A bit of a spoiler because they are numbered, but that's fine.

[B]

Well, we'll get to a couple Helen endings and then maybe we'll. Maybe we'll turn our attention to the boys. How about that?

[A]

And I do think it's worth noting it's. It being a slightly older book, I do expect a few of these chapters to be a little more long like Wordy.

[B]

Yeah, I think like this first bit is going to just be a little bit longer.

[A]

So we'll do our best to keep things moving.

[B]

Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna do. Yeah, do our best. Should a girl marry against the advice of her parents, Helen Rogers faced this problem. The circumstances were as follows. Helen, a slender, vibrant girl of 20 with soft sleek honey gold hair and honest gray green eyes, was madly in love with Jed Herringdale, the only son of a very rich widow. The two had grown up together in Franklin, a small New England town. Helen's parents with middle aged prudence opposed her marrying him in spite of his mother's wealth. They admitted that Jed was a charming young fellow, but not being in love with him as Helen was, they could see his faults clearly. They pointed out that he had never really settled down to work although he made a pretense of selling bonds. That his health was poor, that he took no care of himself, drinking more than was good for him, staying up all night at poker games and living, living on coffee and cigarettes. Helen's brother Simeon, who always did exactly as he wanted to himself but from the very highest motives, called Jed a light o love and said he should think a sister of his would have more pride than to go around with a man who had already been engaged to two girls. But Helen knew the better side of Jed's nature. The eyes of love see virtues more clearly than failings. She knew that Jed loved her with his whole heart and that he was thoroughly dissatisfied with his drifting wasteful habits and that he was looking forward toward a very different kind of life after they were married. She shrewdly suspected that some of her parents opposition rose from the fact that Mrs. Heringdale, his mother, had refused to recognize Helen as a possible daughter in law. Helen had heard that Mrs. Heringdale said she would rather see her son dead in his coffin than married to that Rogers girl. But Everybody knew that Mrs. Heringdale was an unreasonable woman who excused her irrational jealousy by calling it a mother love. Helen's family had their own candidate. They wanted her to marry Saunders Mead, holding that it is wiser to marry a man who is capable of earning money than one who may inherit it. That that does not seem to be the way that the world shook out. But maybe they didn't know that in 1930.

[A]

Weird.

[B]

The worst that can be said of Saunders is that he was exactly the kind of man parents would pick out for a son in law. Prudent, unromantic, hard working and devoted to Helen. Helen did not love him, not an atom. While when she thought of giving up Jed, it was as if she were trying to tear her heart out by the roots, Helen had to admit that there was truth in what her family said against Jed. On the other hand, her whole heart responded to his devotion and she was sure that after they were married he would would stop drinking and settle down to steady work. He had, moreover, a delicious whimsical charm so foreign to the serious Rogers family that Helen was captivated by it. Helen now faced a momentous decision. A momentous decision. Should she defy her family and marry Jed following the dictates of her heart? Or should she be as prudent as her parents would like her to be and refuse a marriage which presented difficulties as well as romance from the beginning? The reader is to make the choice for Helen. If the first choice. If the four. If the first course is chosen, turn to paragraphs H1. If the second course, turn to paragraphs H2. So I guess H1 is Jed and H2 is Bernie Saunders.

[A]

Yeah. Do you have a strong opinion?

[B]

I mean, so Saunders seems like a drip.

[A]

Yeah, he see, like.

[B]

But also like, obviously, obviously she can't change Jed. Obviously she's not gonna change Jed.

[A]

But will she be happy with broken Jed versus bored with boring Saunders? I don't. Does that matter?

[B]

I don't know if Jed's gonna like, leave it up to her whether to be happy with him or not. I think he's gonna continue on his. His, his lecherous and coffee and cigarette. I do slug in ways.

[A]

I do need to give a shout out to Jack Black surprise in the chat. Get a career, Helen. Be a lesbian, Helen. These are two things that.

[B]

Helen. This is 1930. They hadn't invented that yet.

[A]

Oh boy.

[B]

Not in America anyway. It hadn't come over to America from Europe.

[A]

Saunders is funny. Is that true?

[B]

They. Did they say that he's funny. Let me double check.

[A]

Let's double check that.

[B]

No, it does not. Prudent, unromantic, hard working, devoted to Helen is what I've got.

[A]

Yeah, so. So Jed has the whimsical charm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. What are you thinking, Andrew? Where do you want to start?

[B]

I mean, I think we should probably go with the. I don't feel. Let's. We should go with the bad boy.

[A]

I think go with the bad boy.

[B]

We should go with Jed. We should go with Jed. Go with H1.

[A]

When in a painful scene with her parents, Helen had refused to break her engagement, she wasted no time in arguing. She telephoned Jed from the corner drugstore and he was there in his racer within five minutes.

[B]

He has a racer? We didn't even know he had a racer.

[A]

This book is so cool. Helen's heart leapt at the sight of Jed, as it always did. He was as dark as Helen was fair and as mercurial as she was well balanced. The sterling qualities of Saunders, her parents candidate stood no chance against Jed's charm. There was no pretense about Jedi. He did what he felt like doing and didn't see any reason why he shouldn't. He found life pleasant and went out of his way to make it equally pleasant for other people. If Helen had more than her share of the hardy virtues, he had more than his share of the sunny ones. Once in the car with Jed, Helen, in the relief of having made a long deferred and difficult decision, felt as if all her troubles were over. She told Jed what her father, her mother and her brother had said. The story measured by mile after mile of moonlit road. Jed assured her that her parents were entirely wrong about him and that it wasn't any of Simeon's business anyhow.

[B]

Simeon does whatever he wants, but. But only. Only for good reasons. And so we're just supposed to take that on faith. About Simeon.

[A]

He admitted that he was not worthy of her, but cried in a burst of emotion that no man was worthy of the love of a good woman. He that's feminism, baby. He talked about her influence over him and said that she was the only person who had ever understood him. He would have gone on thus forever, but Helen's practical mind was on realities. Your mother will never consent to our marriage, she reminded him. She shall not interfere. He cried vehemently. Helen let steal a march on her. We'll drive straight to New York State and be married by a justice of the peace right now. When it's done, she'll forgive us.

[B]

I don't know how he's driving his racer and riding on a skateboard at the same time.

[A]

Picture a dinosaur playing a guitar on a skateboard. That's what he sounds like. Kellen, who had only just caught her breath after making one decision, now face to second this ladies are just.

[B]

It's. Ladies can't handle very many decisions per minute.

[A]

She knew.

[B]

I mean, especially not in the 1930s.

[A]

It is Judd Nelson.

[B]

You get to make one decision every 36 months. And so this is. This is a lot all at once for Helen.

[A]

She knew that Jed's mother was insanely jealous and that she would selfishly do everything she could to stop the marriage under the pretense that she was acting for Jed's happiness. On the other hand, Helen disliked anything clandestine. The reader who thinks she will be wise to avoid argument and trouble by eloping turns to paragraph H3. The one who thinks she would better decide to return home, determined to face the music and go through with her marriage in spite of opposition, Turns to paragraph H4.

[B]

Elope.

[A]

Elop. Elope. Elope.

[B]

You gotta elope. We're gonna. H3. Having telegraphed their respective families of their clandestine marriage. Wait. Did you telegraph someone when you're trying to do something clandestinely?

[A]

Not usually, no.

[B]

How you do it. Helen and Jed enjoyed a perfect honeymoon after their money gave out. They sold.

[A]

No, they telegraph. They literally sent a telegraph.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's what I mean.

[A]

I thought you meant that they like, telegraph as in the like show.

[B]

No, it's not that. They like foreshadowed it for like. No, they sent a tell. It's 1930. Okay, so cutting edge. Basically. There's like they. They emailed their parents, they did their.

[A]

Super secret marriage and now they're telling everybody about it. It.

[B]

Yeah, okay. Helen and Jed enjoyed a perfect honeymoon after their money gave out. They sold the car to pay their fare back to Franklin. When Mrs. Herringdale, a black eyed, firm mouth woman who had all the determination that her son lacked, had been as disagreeable as she could, which is saying a great deal, she invited them to live with her, but refused to help them otherwise.

[A]

What?

[B]

Jed was anxious to go to his mother's home. And he explained to Helen, that is what.

[A]

I think that's a red flag.

[B]

Okay. He explained to Helen that his mother had done everything for him and he felt deeply indebted to her. Helen knew that he really did love Mrs. Herondale, in spite of her peculiarities. She also realized the practical advantages of this course even better than Jed did. His income from bond selling was precarious and not enough at best to afford them a comfortable home. While she herself was able to face poverty. She hesitated to subject Jed to unaccustomed hardships to which he might not be physically equal. The reader who wishes Helen to accept her mother in law's offer turns to paragraph H7. He who wishes her to face hard work and actual poverty on Jed's precarious and Meager salary. Turns to paragraph age 8. Things have gotten serious quickly, huh?

[A]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, no.

[B]

Are we gonna live with our horrible mother in law or are we going to try and make it on our own?

[A]

Okay, so Toy Christopher says, live with the. Live with Mommy. She's the one with the money. That's pretty good.

[B]

Jack Surprise says, get that money.

[A]

That's good for me.

[B]

Should we get the money?

[A]

We're gonna go H7. I do kind of like that. It is paragraph, H, slash number. So like recognizing that. However this is going to be published. You don't have to go to different page numbers after. So I'm reading H7. After Helen said went to live with Mrs. Heringdale, Helen understood better the influence which had made her husband what he was. Mrs. Herringdale loved her son so much that she had never let him grow up. She was after him incessantly with overshoes, advice and endearments, all three of which offerings irritated him unduly. He snapped at his mother, and then, as if in unconscious apology to her, he snapped at his wife. He became a bone of contention between the two women who loved him devotedly, though neither admitted that she was desperately jealous of the other. Jed dropped into the habit of escaping from home to the club, where there was altogether too much smoking, drinking and gambling to be good for a man so high strung and physically delicate. The birth of a child brought a brief armistice between the two women, followed by even worse conditions.

[B]

I feel it is so 1930 that this was not a choice that we got to make.

[A]

We don't.

[B]

We got married, and then having a kid is the next thing.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good point. They're just. It's just gonna happen.

[B]

And so he's out of the club.

[A]

He is out at the club.

[B]

And now he. Even though he has. He's such a delicate little baby, can barely remember to put on his overshoes, for crying out loud. And now he got a kid.

[A]

Yeah. Jack says this was before the pill. Is that true? I guess. I guess so, yeah.

[B]

The pill was like a.

[A]

Isn't that another Kenya thing?

[B]

I'm not sure.

[A]

Didn't that guy go to Kenyan?

[B]

The pill guy?

[A]

Am I wrong about that? Look that up. Just read.

[B]

Read more stuff. We got so much to read.

[A]

Helen made up her mind that Jed and she must move. But the decision was now not hers to make. For Jed definitely refused to leave his mother's home. This was partly because of his increasing ill health. His death came suddenly leaving. Hell. Wait. Oh, his death Came suddenly leaving Helen financially dependent upon her mother in law who would give her a home but refused her a separate. Refused her separate maintenance. What? What the re. Wow. We've. Andrew, we've been so concerned with whether or not we were a shark. We didn't dare to dream what it would be like to be trapped a widow with your mother in law.

[B]

Yeah. First birth control pills developed in the 1950s, publicly available in the 60s.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. I think. I think that is part of the. The soup of like 60s sexual liberation.

[A]

Okay, great.

[B]

So Jen died, huh?

[A]

The reader who feels that. Yeah. What did he die from? Just being.

[B]

He died of being a delicate little flower.

[A]

He died from being a party boy. The reader who feels that Helen should stay on in order to spare her frail child the dangerous hardships of poverty and ensure his inheritance turns to paragraphs H14. The one who thinks that Helen's duty to leave the mother in law's house and the demoralizing influences which Helen believes ruined Jed's life, an attempt to earn a living for herself and her child turns to age 16.

[B]

This is tough. Every instinct I have is wrong. But I feel like now the kids in the picture, we have to pick the financially stable choice. Yes, we have to stay with mom, but I guess ma like how. To what extent is the book telling us that Jed's mom actually did kill Jedi?

[A]

It's a little bit. A little bit? A little bit. Silas in the chat is reminding us that Carl Jurassi was a Kenyan grad. Father of the pill, quote unquote.

[B]

Thank you, Carl Degrassi. Who for not depressing. For inventing birth control.

[A]

But yes, I think we have to get out of there. The little.

[B]

We have to get out of there.

[A]

That it is the sun. I think we cannot risk Jed 2.

[B]

We can't make him. Jed Jr. Yeah.

[A]

This lady.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I. I honestly, I wanted to go to this house because I thought we might get a fun voice to do. And that has yet to present itself.

[B]

I don't think voices are going to be as much of a part of this one, but I think. Okay, let's. Let's go to age 16. We're going to go out. Helen took a short business course and got a job as secretary at $20 a week. I'm going to assume that that's like medium low. $20 a week? I don't know. Can you google exchange rate or not? Exchange rate.

[A]

So how much is that a year? 20 times.

[B]

You do the math. Because her mother was a nervous invalid and unable to have A child around. She moved into a boarding house where the landlady was willing to look after the little boy during Helen's working hours. I mean, that's a nice perk. Helen was up against it. She worked all the time and worried so that she could not sleep. The child was unruly. Under the landlady's good natured but casual attention, Helen could see no way out. Until Saunders Mead, her old suitor, again came into her life and once more asked her to marry him. Them. Saunders was a man to lean on. He was affectionate, reliable, enterprising and prosperous. But to Helen, uninteresting. He was rather thick set, with a strong jaw and kind blue eyes. He loved children, animals, and anything else he could take care of. The reader who thinks she should marry Saunders turns to paragraphs age 21. The one who thinks she should not turns a paragraph Age 22. Girl, you need to get over it and marry this guy at this point, right?

[A]

I think so.

[B]

Sophus is okay. Says this book was written by Helen's parents, which I think is true. I think. I feel like we have been backed into a corner by.

[A]

I think. I think we're going to 22.

[B]

We're going to 22. She should not marry him.

[A]

No, 20. Wait.

[B]

Listen, I. I think that we just need to cut bait and married Mary Saunders. Like, things are going pretty bad for us.

[A]

But let me tell you. But let me tell you the money thing, Andrew, in. In 20, $24, she's making 19.5k a year.

[B]

That's not a lot.

[A]

That's nothing.

[B]

Even accounting for free childcare from the landlady.

[A]

He loved children, animals, and anything he could take care of.

[B]

I also don't like Jack's, like, surprise. Maybe he's secretly hot. I think that we are discounting. I mean, the book's probably not going to describe what his dong is like to us. Us. But, like, what if it's really good?

[A]

Okay, Emily, what if it's.

[B]

What if it's both good sized and interesting?

[A]

Emily, in the chat, we're just not.

[B]

Being given this information.

[A]

This is genuinely making me sad. Honestly, I don't understand what kind of party this book would create. This is not a good feel.

[B]

Lil re Glasses drawing comparisons to BoJack Horseman's mother, which is, of course devastating if you know the context, which. Craig, you don't.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

You do not watch any of the TV that I ask you to watch.

[A]

That's true. I'm a failure.

[B]

We could have. This is the. This is the consequences of my choice. We could have done a TV podcast or a book podcast. And we did books. So we read all the same books. We watched it on the same tv. That's just how it goes.

[A]

Hush. What should we do, Andrew? 21 or 22?

[B]

I think we just need to marry Saunders. I think he's gonna win. I think if this was a rom com, he would win us over with his reliable, like, affable, every man personality and we would realize that he was everything that we were looking for all along. But I do agree that we've been trapped into this by this book being written by Helen's parents.

[A]

Yeah. H21. Here we go.

[B]

Okay, when I'm reading it.

[A]

No, I'm reading it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah, fine. I don't know.

[A]

I forgot when Helen had been married to Saunders for a year, but I will keep reading in just a second. I. What I think is fascinating about this book relative to our choose your own experience, is the way time jumps occur in the narrative.

[B]

Well, they're just like choices that flow downstream from other choices.

[A]

Yep, yep. Yeah, it's fascinating. When Helen had been married to Saunders for a year, and it was a little over two years since Jed died, she still had the feeling that Jed was not really dead so long as his memory was alive in her heart. And she talked constantly to the child about him. The little boy was healthy and happy and devoted to his stepfather. Helen's marriage to Saunders had given the child a fine home, and Helen thought very little about whether or not Saunders was satisfied with the conscientious attentions she carefully remembered to give him her devotion to the memory of her dead husband. Her punctilious attitude toward her living husband did not come into active conflict until one afternoon when Saunders came home early in high spirits with the news that business called him to a nearby city where he would be obliged to spend the night.

[B]

Punctilious, showing great attention to detail or correct behavior.

[A]

Yeah, she is.

[B]

She's learning new. Just learning new words.

[A]

Yeah, she is trying her best to be a good wife to Saunders. But she still loves Jen. Jed, the late Jed. The late party boy. Jed, is she trying. She's being punctilious. But Andrew to her.

[B]

Okay, sure. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.

[A]

He planned to make a gay evening of it, taking Helen with him in the car.

[B]

I feel like Helen could stand gay evening at this point. Like as people in the chat said before, she's due for one and a.

[A]

Dinner and theater party for a friend of his and Helen's Carol Lane and some other former Franklin people now living in the city. This is a lot of lore that I don't understand.

[B]

Franklin's the. Like the town, right?

[A]

Oh, yes. Okay. Okay.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

Helen had planned to spend the afternoon at her first husband's grave with her little boy, for it was the second anniversary of Jed's death. The reader who thinks she should go off for a good time with Saunders on the anniversary of Jed's death turns to paragraphs H28. He who thinks she should carry flowers to Jed's grave and spend the time in a manner appropriate to the occasion turns to paragraphs H29.

[B]

Don't editorialize to me. Consider the consequences. Don't tell me what's appropriate for this occasion. I'm gonna go out with my husband. I'm gonna have a nice time. I'm going to age 28.

[A]

Let's have a great time.

[B]

Let's have a great time with Saunders and realize that he's been here for us, the whole town. I do think this is an ending because it does not have choices at the end of it. When Helen accepted Saunders's infant. Saunders, Infertile, I think the kid is.

[A]

Saunders is two years old now.

[B]

When Helen accepted Saunders's invitation to go to the city, she went upstairs and took off her black dress without dampening her husband's high spirits by mentioning that was the anniversary of the death of her first husband. Beautiful ride in the crisp air blew away the depression from which she had been suffering all day. She enjoyed meeting Carol, who was handsomer than ever, and getting a divorce from her husband. Get it, Carol? The consequence of considering a living husband's happiness more important than a dead husband's memory was that Helen came back from the trip closer to Saunders than she had ever been and convinced that having a good time was part of a wife's duty.

[A]

Holy crap.

[B]

The end.

[A]

What did we just read?

[B]

She. She took off her morning clothes.

[A]

Congratulations.

[B]

And she discovered that she wasn't depressed anymore.

[A]

It was a cure for depression to take off the grief clothes.

[B]

We didn't really stick a thumb in any of the other choices.

[A]

Well. Cause we're gonna. We're gonna. We gotta encounter these boys. Yeah.

[B]

I feel like we have to. We have to get to an ending with each character now.

[A]

Yep, yep, yep.

[B]

Cuz I'm so Jed. I do need to know more about what makes Jed tick from Jed's perspective now.

[A]

Yeah. Well, Jed got the second most votes, so.

[B]

Because he died of being, I don't know, like a.

[A]

A soft Boy toy Christopher says, is that why I'm depressed? I don't roll down the windows in my car and feel the crisp air and blow it away.

[B]

Yeah, that's probably why everybody. I think that's probably why you're depressed.

[A]

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

[B]

I, like, I do feel for Jed because, you know, somebody with, like, a delicate constitution who isn't made to, like, go out and live in the world. Like, they hadn't invented Tumblr yet. So I don't know what Jed was supposed to do, was supposed to spend all time doing what kind of life was he supposed to live?

[A]

Yes, yes, yes.

[B]

Was he supposed to record, like, funny little tiktoks where he did, like, little impressions of people or whatever? And that was supposed to be his thing. He was just. He just wasn't built for this.

[A]

No, he's okay. So, Beth. So I guess it is doing lyrics from Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield in the chat. I'm feeling very good about this choice of book right now.

[B]

Okay. We're going to Jed's Choices, which is page 81. Do you feel okay about that?

[A]

I feel fine about. About this.

[B]

Am I reading or are you reading? I do keep losing track.

[A]

Did I just read the last one? I think you just read the last one.

[B]

Maybe. I don't know. This is very long. I think either way, it's okay.

[A]

Oh, because you said Saunders is a bunch.

[B]

I will read Saunders. I did say Saunders is a bunch because it was really throwing me how it said Saunders is okay. I may. When somebody's name ends with an S, I'm put an apostrophe after the S and don't add another S person.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I'm not a Putin. I'm not a. Throw another S on it kind of. Kind of guy.

[A]

It's. It's b. Been a. It's been a bit since we did an audience poll, so I'm just going to prep a poll for the end of this one.

[B]

Please do.

[A]

To set us on a course. Right. We'll see what happens.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

This. This opening is. Is a little bit long. So here we go. Jed Herringdale was the only son of a widow. If she had been a poor widow, he would have been very different and perhaps a finer character, for he would have been expected to assume responsibility early. But she was so very rich that she took care of him too much and too long for his best good. Jed was fundamentally fine, but he did not have drilled into him early in early youth, the tiresome habits of getting to his appointments on Time knowing how much money he spent doing things he didn't want to do because somebody else thought he ought to do them. Eating what was good for him and not drinking what wasn't. In brief, he was not healthy nor wise, but he was wealthy and a darling same. To know him was to love him and also to nag at him. Get him? Jed grew up in Franklin, a small New England town. He went to the high school because it was the best school there, but took his senior year in prep school. From prep school he went to Harvard where he had a wonderful time and got through his freshman year by the skin of his teeth. He came back to the old hometown for his summer vacation in the swaggerest clothes ever seen there and driving a racing car which he called the Scarlet Siren. This guy sucks.

[B]

Thanks, Ed. No, he rules. What are you talking about?

[A]

The first Sunday after his return, his mother took him to church to show him off. And in the afternoon, in the consciousness of duty, well done. He picked up the first acquaintance whom he met, square shouldered Saunders Mead, a clerk in the local emporium. And the two lads started off in the Scarlet Siren in search of a golden adventure.

[B]

All right. I think we could have a. We could have a gay afternoon.

[A]

He did rivalry. The car took them to whoopee land.

[B]

What?

[A]

They know where they were. Just in time to pay the entrance fees for two damsels. One fair is noonday and the other black eyed. Like the dark lady of Shakespeare's sonnets. Jed had had freshman English.

[B]

That nice. Okay, go, go, go. You gotta. You gotta pick it up. There's so much. There's so much left to read.

[A]

They exchanged names as they went round and round in the Ferris wheel. They clung to each other duly and shooting the chutes, they kissed each other conventionally in the dark, dark mill. And by that time they were well enough acquainted for the Scarlet Siren to hurry them home, hurry them to a roadhouse for food and possibly something to drink.

[B]

Okay, I forgot that. That we were talking about Jed and the lady that he met and not Jed and Saunders Mead.

[A]

Yep, yep, yep, yep. Jed was a fairy prince to Gwen Murphy and she was Brunhilda to him. The strength and sureness of this uneducated young woman were restful to Jed, who was too sensitive and nervous to be hugged. Husky Jed's sophistication and slim grace were to Gwen a glimpse into another world which she had always longed to enter. Love at first sight had come to both. And though Saunders sensibly dropped his lady love on her doorstep at an early hour and prudently rang the bell before he gave her a passionate goodnight kiss. Jed drove through Arcady with Gwen all night, speeding home in a panic in order that she might get herself safely tucked into bed before her stern father got up. This was the prelude to the most wonderful summer that either of them had ever known. Jed drifted into passionate love, evading disquieting thought. Gwen, deliberately facing the facts, was willing to brave scandal and the gossip which was already arising. In order to have her love. Before college opened in the fall, Jed had to face the first big decision of his life. Gwen told Jed that they must marry at once because she was going to have a child.

[B]

Oops.

[A]

Jed found that the matter did not involve simply himself and Gwen. It also involved his mother. Mrs. Heringdale was brokenhearted at the news. No girl in the world was good enough for Jed, and instead of the best, he had, from her viewpoint, chosen the worst. She made a generous offer of money to Gwen on condition that she release Jedi. She felt that Jed had been trapped by an unscrupulous woman. And at a memorable interview with the girl, during which Jed was miserable with late repentance, she accused Gwen of having deliberately schemed to get a rich husband, to which Gwen replied indignantly, I certainly would never have had a love affair with a man who couldn't marry me. What sort of a girl do you think I am? Mrs. Heringdale told her, and the conversation that followed will not bear repeating. Jed was now faced with the choice between mother and sweetheart when Gwen asked in astonishment, don't you love me anymore? He was equally astonished to find that he was unable to answer that question clearly, even to himself. Up against a trouble like this, he had no time to consider whether or not he was still in love with Gwen. One cannot ask a man trapped in a burning building whether or not he loves his wife. It was a terrible punishment for an hour of dalliance to ruin his career and hurt his mother so cruelly. Yet the child was his as much as Gwen's. The reader who decides that Jed is to marry Gwen turns to paragraphs J1, while the one who decides that he is not to marry her turns to paragraph J2. Here's the poll, boy. You must vote on your best friend, Jed.

[B]

Yeah. Take this choice out of our hands, because I'm not sure what to do with this. They should not have gone to feeling. They should not have gone to Whoopee Land.

[A]

Whoopee Land? Savannah asked, is this book just adult goofus and gallant Yeah, I think so.

[B]

It's. What? One of the things that's interesting to me is that in the Helen chapter, Helen is like, I'm the center of the universe and both of these boys are just. Just like mine for the taking. And in this chapter it's like. Well, neither of us think of Helen at all, actually. Yeah, it's as though Helen does not exist.

[A]

Yeah. I wonder if this is like, does Helen exist? Or is this all before Helen?

[B]

Or is the. The unnamed girl, that's that Saunders is out snogging? Is that Helen?

[A]

Is that Helen?

[B]

Probably not, but I don't know.

[A]

It went pretty quickly.

[B]

Is the poll. How's the poll look?

[A]

J1 got 65% of the boat, so.

[B]

We need to marry Gwen.

[A]

Okay, so Amanda reminds us. I was about to ask. Same thing. In the Helen chapter, Jed had been engaged twice.

[B]

So maybe Gwen is. Gwen is. Gwen is one of them. Maybe. For the fair few weeks. For the first few weeks after their marriage, Jed was very happy with Gwen. He had the approval of a satisfied conscience and he was pretty sure his mother would come around in time. He thought it was rather a lark to live with Mr. Murphy. And Mr. Murphy, who was Mrs. Herringdale's Iceman, was pleased with his highborn son in law and amused by his unpractical schemes for making a fortune for the Murphy family. But the all around cordiality had begun to wear a bit thin by the time the baby came. The baby, who had her mother's robust health and her father's sunny charm when things went well, saved the situation for a little while. But Jed and Mr. Murphy were not made to dwell in harmony together indefinitely. And Jed could not make a home for Gwen and the baby. His visionary plans of ice making on a big scale finally annoyed his father in law. And Murphy heartily wished his daughter had married a bricklayer who would bring home his wages on Saturday night.

[A]

Quit bringing your schemes to me, Jed.

[B]

Your ice making schemes. Jed, who had always been the center of admiration, wilted under his first experience with criticism. Yeah, this guy definitely is just made to be a Tumblr poster.

[A]

Yep. Huh.

[B]

He lost his greatest asset, his sunny disposition and joy in life. The Murphy family began getting on his nerves. He could not enjoy playing poker with Mr. Murphy's hearty friends because of Mr. Murphy's habit of licking his thumb when he dealt and the awful smell of his pipe. Gwen was amazed that a man with all of Jed's education couldn't hold a job. And she soon came to care more for the child's sunny activity than for Jed's woe be gone. Lolling about the house, she declared that if Jed would only make an effort, he could get a job as well as anybody. But there was nothing of the go getter in Jed's nature. He spent more and more time with a sympathetic mother who continually pointed out to him that now he had saved Gwen's honor. He was justified in getting a divorce. He was not forced to make a decision here because the two women took matters out of his hands. Gwen bargained shrewdly with Mrs. Heringdale and obtained enough alimony to bring up the child and educate her well. She was able to move into a small house of her own with the baby. And though she bitterly regretted that Jed was not there yet, she was sensible enough to see that she wouldn't have had the house if he had. If he had been. Jed brooded over his failure as a husband and breadwinner until the doctors advised a long trip abroad. He went alone for Mrs. Heringdale no longer looked upon him as a child. His marriage had shown her that he was capable of breaking with her completely, even though it would involve giving up all that she could offer him. Jed took up sketching in Switzerland in a dilettante fashion and became so interested that he went to Paris to enter an art school where he was looked upon as a student of decided promise, but still undeveloped. He dropped easily into the life of the Latin Quarter and found there the congenial companionship he had never found in Franklin. He was becoming absorbed in his work and was receiving commendation from the masters. When his mother wrote him that the family lawyer who had managed her money was dead, she concluded, you have been away long enough. Should I have a voice for her like in the letter? Please hit me with one. You have been away long enough. It is now time for you to come home and relieve me of the care of the estate. My head gets quite muddled over taxes and rents. I shall turn the entire responsibility over to you. You are young, but you can learn. You could have the attic made into a studio and you can paint afternoons. But I am too old to live without you. The reader who thinks he should return to Franklin turns the paragraphs J3 the reader who thinks he should should stay in Perry turns to paragraphs J4.

[A]

I don't know, man.

[B]

He's only. This is. We found the only environment he can thrive in. We gotta stay here.

[A]

We gotta stay in Paris.

[B]

We gotta stay in gay Paris.

[A]

This is where he was meant to be.

[B]

This is where he was meant to be. Turn to J4.

[A]

I gotta find J4. J3 is really long. Gotta find J4.

[B]

Yeah, we can't do J3. This too long. We got two. J4.

[A]

Jed felt it was up to him to make good in his painting, for thus only could he justify himself. So he's divorced now, right?

[B]

That's what I got. Divorced. Yeah.

[A]

In having refused his mother's request to return home from Paris, he had never before settled down to any kind of work. But painting did not seem to him like work. He concentrated so well that in a few years he had gained some recognition. His first triumph came when he had an alpine landscape hung in the salon.

[B]

Alpine?

[A]

Oh, that's a. Oh, sorry. It's Alpine. Alpine is a. Is a team in F1. Excuse me. I think it's French.

[B]

Okay. All right. All right, all right. Alpine landscape.

[A]

Excuse me. Its reception inspired Jed to attempt a series of European glaciers. But he was impelled to go back to America to visit his mother before he started on this life work Jedi. For though she had arranged her financial affairs satisfactorily by putting them in the hands of a trust company, she had never ceased to beg him to come home. Jed landed in New York and stayed there a few days to visit the art galleries before going on to Franklin. He took this occasion to renew his acquaintance with Marion Cole. Who? A former Franklin girl whom he had liked in high school days. Marion was in fine spirits because she had just left a good position in the business office of a magazine for a far better one in the office of a railroad president. She told Jed that the new opening fulfilled her wildest dreams. For though she was nominally secretary, she foresaw that she would eventually be given a as much responsibility as she was capable of carrying. She had known one or two women in large corporations who, though they were called secretaries, were virtually vice presidents. Marion was not Are they are.

[B]

They paid as much as a vice president.

[A]

Though too preoccupied with her own interests to have dinner with Jed every night at restaurants so smart that they were not yet widely known. She showed an intelligent appreciation of the few paintings he had brought with him. And enjoyed as much as he did the art exhibitions they attended together. Jed remained in New York longer than he had intended. He was deeply in love with Marion, and he had asked her to marry him and return to Paris with him after they had visited his mother. To his bewilderment, Marion declared that though she loved him, she would not give up her career for him. She could not marry him unless he would Make New York his headquarters. Jed thought that he could easily cajole her out of these strong minded notions. But she pointed out some three or four of her intimate friends who had both successful careers and happy home lives. She told him that though she loved him, she knew that she could not be happy with a man too crystallized to adapt himself to a woman with a career.

[B]

A wife with a career.

[A]

A wife with a career. Excuse me. The reader who thinks Jed should give up Europe and Mary Marion Cole turns to paragraphs J9. He who thinks he should give up Marianne turns to page J10. Or Mary. Excuse me.

[B]

I think we got marrier. What do you think?

[A]

Oh, yeah. He should say, this woman seems like she knows what's up. Yeah, this is a good choice. I. I hope.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. All right. This is gonna end it. Having chosen marriage to Marion in preference to life without her in Petteri, Jed did not hold it up against her. With his usual adaptability, he. What? Usual adaptability.

[A]

Usual adaptability.

[B]

Unable to adapt to stuff this anti.

[A]

Chameleon.

[B]

With his usual adaptability, he proceeded to find what he wanted in America. During a wonderful honeymoon in Canada along the magnificent Columbia river, he discovered that there are glaciers in America. He came back with a portfolio of striking studies of the Columbia ice field, from which he painted his first tremendously successful picture. The beginning of his famous series of Canadian glaciers.

[A]

His famous series of Canadian glaciers.

[B]

Jed's success at painting kept him from being overshadowed by his beautiful and vital young wife. But he never ceased to marvel at her cleverness. It amused him to watch the skillful way in which she arranged people's lives to their own advantage without their knowing it. Not only did she make a name for herself in the business world, but she also ran a charming home and found time to sandwich in three babies, who she adored. Love to sandwich in my babies.

[A]

Love to sandwich them in a triple decker baby sandwich. The whopper of babies.

[B]

Listen, I'm just gonna pencil my three babies.

[A]

Excuse me. The Big Mac of babies.

[B]

Yes. As if this were not enough, she made friends with Jed's mother. Whoa. Whoa. She tamed Mrs. Herringdale Dang. And actually persuaded his first wife, Gwen, who had not remarried, to allow little Madeline to make long visits to a remarried Gwen, who had not remarried to allow little Madeline to make long visits to her father. Jed had an amused perception that his two wives were of a similar type. Though Marian had the advantage of a cultural background and perhaps a more sensitive temperament.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He could not quite understand why it was that she seemed to look up to him. But this was an added incentive to work at the painting which he so much enjoyed, and to take the long, explorative trips into Canada from which he. He brought back his pictures of mountain ranges jagged against the sky, emerald lakes and erosive cataracts dropping into dusky gorges. Jed was the type of man who is ruined or saved by his wife. And the consequence of his securing a wife with an unusual combination of masculine independence and feminine tenderness was that he was cleverly guided to make the most of himself. The end. So what we learned in this ending is that Jed dying in the club was Helen's fault. But we found that. We found the way that Jed, the Jed, thrives and survives. We found it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. No, you're not wrong.

[B]

Amanda says this does sound like the best outcome for everybody, except for Helen, who has ceased to exist. As far as we know, in the side of this one, Saunders hooked up with Helen at Whoopee Land, and they are living their own happily ever after over in the margin somewhere. Helen didn't have enough masculine qualities. Toy. Christopher says, which I. Which I agree, she obviously did not.

[A]

We're gonna re. We're gonna do Saunders. That'll take us out of here127. And I'm gonna queue up a poll to kick us off on our Saunders journey.

[B]

129 is the first page of Saunders Mead.

[A]

And you read the end there on the last one, right?

[B]

I did, yeah. No, I do think that Saunders's little intro section is the shortest of all the ones that we've. That we've encountered so far.

[A]

Here we go. Saunders Mead was brought up in a pleasant frame house painted white in Franklin, a small New England town. His father, who was the postmaster, had only a small income, but the Mead children never thought of themselves as poor because there were always cookies in the pantry. Saunders, the eldest of the. Okay, real quick. A thought I've had as we've been reading this book is that, like, if this is a party book, who's at the party party?

[B]

I think it's. It's a small circle of intimates.

[A]

But I mean, like, what is the class of the people at the party and what fun are they having at the expense of the characters? You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of the vibe I've been getting from this book a little bit.

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

Knowing. Knowing, you know, Hopkins's background in particular, that, like, she's here as a largely progressive person with feminist interests. That, like, there's a lot of Lampooning to be had here. But, like, you know, I like the.

[B]

The bit in Jed's chapter where, like, he's had freshman English, and so he's like, man, I'm gonna slum it with these uneducated people back in my hometown. Like, dude, I did freshman English. You were not learning that much.

[A]

Saunders, the eldest of the family, early developed a sense of responsibility and began developing papers. When he was 13 years old, he.

[B]

Had developed that paper.

[A]

What he earned, he could keep for himself with the proviso. Proviso that he save a certain amount of it. And this ready money made him rather an important person with the other children in later years. He appreciated his early experience in saving, spending, and using his money. Man, he is boring. Okay. Among his schoolmates were Jed Herringdale and Helen Rogers. Carol Lane, who lived in New York, spent her summers in Franklin with her grandmother. The four children were close friends and never lost sight of one another after they were grown. As soon as Saunders was graduated from high school, he got a steady job in the Franklin dry goods store, where he had already worked during this. During his summer vacations and Christmas holidays.

[B]

I feel like Saunders is one of Franklin's dry goods at this point.

[A]

Yeah, a little bit. Soon afterward, through his father's death, he became the head of the family. Old Mr. Braley, proprietor of the store in which Saunders worked, took a great interest in the reliable and enterprising boy and raised his salary by infinitesimal gradations, as was the custom in Franklin. So not with cost of living, I guess.

[B]

No, just like the little, teeny, tiny, little, teeny, tiny little bit bits. Like, here's an extra. Here's an extra nickel.

[A]

Saunders Xeno's raises.

[B]

Don't. Don't spend it all in one place. Idiot.

[A]

By the time Saunders was 22, he had $500 saved up. And it's like 10 grand, I guess.

[B]

I feel like the lesson of this book so far is that these three people are at their best when they have nothing to do with each other. Like trying to force them together is the problem.

[A]

Mr. Braylee learning this offered him a chance to invest the money in the store with the idea of gradually but regularly buying a controlling interest. A pyramid scheme Braylee planned. That's my own editorial. To retire fairly soon. And there was no one to whom he would rather turn over the store in which he had worked for 50 years than young Mead. Saunders was tremendously interested in the store, had spent a large part of his time reading business literature and developing merchandising. Projects. Mr. Braley's offer would not be repeated because if Saunders did not take it, another clerk who was Mr. Braley's second choice would get the chance. But Saunders younger brother Alfred wanted to go to Massachusetts Tech to study architecture and had saved up a hundred dollars towards this purpose. If he could borrow Saunders 500, he could manage with the utmost economy to scrape through his first year. The following years would be easier because if he had made a good record, he could count on a scholarship and upon working, found for him by the students employment bureau.

[B]

A good record. He's got a man gonna sing. Pay him to sing into his can.

[A]

The lad was more brilliant than his elder brother and very lovable. He was extremely dear to Saunders. The reader who thinks Saunders should lend the money to Alfred turns to paragraphs S1. The reader who thinks he should invest it in the store turns to S2. Here is the poll for our viewers.

[B]

Oh, we're doing a poll?

[A]

Take it away. I feel like from here on out, you and I are probably gonna be. Make the choices things moving.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you give your money to your brother Alfred, who is more brilliant than you and very lovable, or who's better.

[B]

Than you in every way?

[A]

Do you keep it and invest it in your boss's store? What do you think? I'm not weighing in, Andrew. I have no idea what to do with this.

[B]

I'm not gonna weigh in, even though I have a clear preference. Like I. I think I know what. Have one in mind. Yeah.

[A]

I'm gonna let it ride for a few more minutes because I need it to get to a majority.

[B]

We. I mean, we got 16. We got 17 votes. 18.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We've only. We've got 25 people in the chat right now.

[A]

Okay. I will not close the poll because people in the chat say close poll. I will close the poll because I decide to. Here we go.

[B]

I think people are saying that it's a close poll. Probably not that you need to close it. Stop the account. Stop the account.

[A]

Okay, the final count. Choice one. Yes, Jack Blacks. I understand you said close poll. 58% out of 19 votes. Here we go.

[B]

So I think obvious, obviously we gotta lend the money to Alfred because Mr. Braylee is current. Is clearly a 1930 Bernie Madoff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he's like, I'm gonna approach you with an investment opportunity that will allow you to buy my failing enterprise and let me retire and then leave you with the bill. Come on, Saunders, I don't like you.

[A]

S1.

[B]

I don't want bad things for You.

[A]

I'm open to liking you, Saunders. That's where I'm starting. Here s1.

[B]

Andrew Saunders gave his 500 to his brother Alfred without complaining of it being a sacrifice he had rewarded. He had reward in Alfred's brilliant work which secured a tuition scholarship in the boy's second year with the offer of work in the student's leisure room. In view of Alfred's attainments, it was a pity for him to divert a part of his attention to drudgery. And Saunders decided to give him another 500 each of the four years he spent at the Institute of Technology. During Alfred's senior year, Alfred chose for his thesis a design for a grammar school for Franklin. Because for several years there had been talk of building a new school on the large lot where the Mead house stood. Understood it was essentially located in every way desirable for a school. The alderman took I like the other two chapters we're talking about like these people, like deciding to like have babies with each other. With each other. And the Saunders chapter. It's like we're like instantly to alderman. Like we're just talking about alderman and like building on vacant lots and it's like boring Saunders.

[A]

This is what Helen didn't want to marry into.

[B]

The alderman took definite steps toward the actual accomplishment of. Of this much talked of scheme when Alfred had graduated with high honor and his plans exhibited in the city hall were exciting favorable comment with Donna. When Donovan, president of the board, called one evening to discuss matters with Saunders, now the head of the family, Saunders knew that Alfred. Marge and Jimmy. Who's Jimmy? Who are Marge and Jimmy?

[A]

Who are Marge and Jimmy?

[B]

Who were in the kitchen dancing silent jigs with their hands over their mouths to hold in their yelps of joy. At first it was all plain sailing. The interview began pleasantly with the statement that the board of aldermen had virtually decided to utilize Alfred's plans for the new school. Thereafter, Donovan conveyed to Saunders an offer of $10,000 for the Meade property, which through a generous sum was not excessive. But presently Saunders began to hear something beneath the words. The alderman was explaining to him that since no real estate agent was concerned in the deal, Saunders would pay what would otherwise have been the agent's commission directly to the board of Alderman. Alderman indeed, to the president himself. This goes all the way to the top. It developed further that the commission was an unusually large one. $2,000 in fact, when Saunders protested in honest bewilderment, he was told curtly that the owner of a certain lot on the other side of the Railroad tracks was ready to agree to this proposition. Saunders was very stupid where dishonesty was concerned, but his eyes were completely open when he learned that he must make the two thousand dollar payment. Payment in bills and not by check. Saunders suddenly found himself faced with the problem of whether or not to close his eyes to the small piece of graft. If he did, his brother's excellent design would be accepted and the fact would give Alfred a fine start in his profession. The Mead family would be able to move into a house with modern conveniences where the housework would be easier for Mrs. Mead and a couple of thousand dollars could be put aside toward a rainy day. Moreover, the school would be built in a good location instead of an unsuitable one across the railroad track tracks. Why is it unsuitable across the railroad tracks, do you think? If, on the other hand, he refused the offer, Alfred's chance would be lost and he would. He himself might be forced to denounce Donovan in an effort, probably futile, to block the scheme of putting the schoolhouse in a dangerous location. The reader who thinks he should accept the offer turns the paragraphs S3. The one who thinks he should refuse turns to paragraph S4. Once again, Helen, not the center of the universe. Here we've discovered a small universe of of organized crime.

[A]

Savannah says in the chat. Helen, meanwhile, is falling asleep into a plate of spaghetti as Saunders recalls all of this on their first date. So Andrew, this is like when you watch the Wire and then is it season two that they're like, yeah, remember all those drug guys? It's Pollocks at the docks now. Yeah, like sure, buckle up for not what you thought you were watching.

[B]

Yeah, it's just like I was told I would be considering consequences. I guess I did not know what kind of consequences I would be considering. So here we are.

[A]

I don't like a band. I don't. I don't want to do bad by Alfred.

[B]

I don't want to do bad by Alfred. And I think that Saunders is a go along to get along schmuck. Honestly.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

At this point I think that he would go with it.

[A]

Yep, he's gonna go with it. I think so. S3 Here we go. For some months after Saunders accepted the plan proposed by Donovan, selling the lot to the city and paying part of the money back to the president of the board of all this is my favorite. Welcome to my party. I'm going to read a party book for this talk.

[B]

Have we talked about a board of aldermen on this podcast ever? In like 15 years.

[A]

He was nervous lest Someone discover the deal and misunderstand his motives. But Donovan was too adept at this sort of thing to run into any danger whatever, and Saunders became reconciled to his own slight deviation from rectitude because of his mother's satisfaction in the convenient new home and Alfred's enthusiasm and delight in having his plans accepted. About the time the excavation was finished and the foundation begun, Saunders was disturbed by a sudden drop in Alfred's spirit. The boy became glum and uncommunicative, replying to Saunders questions simply by saying curtly that everything was going well. Certainly he was attending to business, for he had numerous lengthy conferences with the aldermen, each of whom, by a curious coincidence, was furnishing part of the supplies for the building. One owned a brickyard, a second ran a lumber yard, and so on. Saunders realized what he had put his younger brother up against, seeing what temptation there was to connive in dishonesty in the furnishing of materials. Disturbed, he asked Alfred frankly if there was graft in the proposition. Alfred, who had always looked up to Saunders, turned on him with sulky resentment. You're a great one to pry into my affairs, he retorted, after you split profits with Donovan yourself.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Then the whole thing came out. The alderman, pretending they doubted after all that the plans were practicable, had put off signing the contract until Alfred was beside himself with anxiety. Then Donovan had come into the open and explained the school for which a hundred thousand had been appropriated was actually to cost only 60,000. If Alfred wanted to be the architect, it would be necessary for him to secretly to substitute for the plans publicly displayed after being accepted as his thesis, a new set of plans calling for inferior materials in construction. The $40,000 thus saved was to be split up among those who were in the ring. Alfred had at first refused with young indignation, but when Donovan had told him how Saunders had come around, Alfred, disillusioned, had finally capitulated. Man, this is heavy, Saunders bitterly.

[B]

And like also boring, but like heavy. It's.

[A]

It's very sad for Alfred, but it is very boring for me. Right. I feel very bad for Alfred in particular. Saunders, bitterly regretting his own false step, urged Alfred to give up the whole business. But Alfred, with unexpected stubbornness, said that Saunders day of authority over him was passed. He assured his brother that although the material was scamp and the construction altered to a cheaper form, the building was still fireproof and better than a many good buildings about which nobody made any fuss. The reader who thinks Saunders should expose the ring turns to paragraph S7, 6, 7. The one who thinks he should keep quiet. The one who thinks he should keep quiet turns to paragraphs. S8.

[B]

I love having a six year old who knows about six, seven I and I'm told through my brother in law that in the high school set who invented all this is like losing interest in 6, 7. I'm so glad for them that they're doing that. But Henry got a set of double nine dominoes for Christmas and when he draws the domino that has a number six and a number seven on it, he's always like, looks at me like expectantly like he knows what the, what numbers are on this domino.

[A]

It's pretty funny.

[B]

Six, seven.

[A]

I'm just kind of. I just love that my three year old watched your child say six, seven and invented for himself. Nine, ten. Yeah, it gives me like he watched.

[B]

A bunch of adults correctly identifies that there's nothing, that there's nothing to this. Like it's just people saying numbers and he's like well these are the numbers. I would say in response to that. Like it makes, it totally makes sense.

[A]

What do you think Andrew? Are we exposing the ring or keeping quiet?

[B]

I think that Saunders who clearly has his pants pulled up to his nipples.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Should expose the ring.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That's the kind of nerd that he is.

[A]

Suppose the one ring. Let's do it.

[B]

One ring to rule them all. This is an end.

[A]

This is an ending. Great.

[B]

This is an ending and then that will be the ending. Saunders first act after he discovered how Alfred was being bullied into acquiescing and graft was to go to Donovan. Well, why would you go to Donovan? Donovan's the source of all this. The president of the board of aldermen and threatened him with exposure. Oh, well that's okay. That's why I should have kept ready threatened him with exposure if he did not build the schoolhouse according to the original plans. When Donovan pointed out that he had something on Saunders which he would not hesitate to use, Saunders carried his story to the editor of the paper of the opposition party. That paper doubled its circulation in the weeks following. Franklin rang with the scandal and the conservative group who did not want the taxes raised, took advantage of the hysteria to get the school building postponed indefinitely.

[A]

Okay, well now we can't have any schools. Dang it.

[B]

Saunders himself was quickly involved because the man whose lot had not been purchased had been propitiated, I guess with the contract to haul dirt. And in retaliation for losing this job, he exposed the deal between Saunders and Donovan. The outraged citizens lumped Saunders in with the aldermen in their general condemnation. Mrs. Mead could not hold up her head before her neighbors and Alfred ran away.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Where Saunders set his jaw, he accepted the punishment for his misstep as right and determined to live down his disgrace. Later, when Alfred, who was living a hobo life, wrote home for money, Saunders supplied it, although it meant that he had to deprive himself of everything but bare necessities. Mr. Braley was the only one who understood Saunders position and respected his desperate attempt to return to the path of complete honesty. When he died some years later, he left Saunders an interest in the store and commended him in his will for the staunchness with which he had fought down disgrace. Saunders fellow citizens who had not realized that winning back loss esteem was far more difficult and leading a life of continuous integrity were so impressed by Mr. Braley's action that they felt more kindly towards Saunders, the man who had bought into the store at the time. When Saunders, instead of taking advantage of Mr. Bradley's offer, gave his money to Alfred, liked and trusted Saunders and the two carried on the business harmoniously for many years. Alfred was not a complete disappointment because curiously enough, he developed a talent for verse making in his wandering life. He was discovered by the Greenwich Village Poetry association and a slim volume of his verse with a picture on the jacket of a man walking the railroad ties was published and claimed Saunders continued to support the poet as he had the tramp and his mother was prouder of her poet's son than of any of her other children. The consequence of Saunders having acted dishonestly when he was essentially an honest man is a proof to any thoughtful person that to make a success in crime one must put one's whole soul into it as one must into any profession. People raised to be honest would better resign themselves to remaining honest. The end.

[A]

Wow. That is the mo of any of the three endings that is the most explicit that our authors were like, listen.

[B]

Saunders deviated from the path set for him. I mean, we found Jed's path eventually we did. Which was to learn from the masters in Paris and then come back to New York so he could paint Canadian glaciers for the rest of his life.

[A]

Jack, Lax and Beth both think that Saunders would have benefited from that trip to Whoopee Land in our. In our Saunders universe.

[B]

That's honestly my favorite thing about this book is that each. Each reality really is like hermetically sealed. Yeah. And like separated from the other realities by kind of weird. We can't. Yeah. It's. It's definitely not. You were seeing the same situation from Saunders perspective. It's like here we. We've conceived of Saunders as a. As his own independent completely separate creation and he's going to deal with graft in local government.

[A]

And Jed's is going to be about being a fail son with a mother in law that you hated from the first story.

[B]

I think we could do. I mean Mrs. Heringdale is the closest to like a continuous antagonistic presence that persists through all the stories. I think we could do an entirely separate episode that's just of Helen. I do correct think that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We happen. We happen to take a series of choices that showed Helen in a particularly negative light and the fact this is written by two women, one of. One of whom is like a pretty devoted feminist.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

I think if we picked at Helen's reality a little more we would have a better sense of. Of what the book had to say about. About feminism and the. And the lot of women like. I think part of the. The point of the book was to show like these, these are the decisions that women get to make and these are the decisions that they don't get to make.

[A]

Yes. I think you're right. I think you're right. Like your note that the child like occurred a paragraph into a choice into.

[B]

A different choice as opposed to oh.

[A]

Will this marriage have a child? Or like it's not will she get married? It's who will she marry.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And then, and then once she marries somebody the, the child is a, a natural unquestioned sort of after effect of that.

[A]

Yes. And. And the. We found the choices that brought her into the most conflict with another woman which is also another fraught path. But yes, that was wild book.

[B]

Glad for Jed that we found a woman who had the perfect combination of. Of masculine qualities and, and other stuff for him to drip by.

[A]

But that's true.

[B]

It's really sad that he died of like having a bad constitution in the club which is I guess just how people did it.

[A]

That is true. He was unwise. As we were flipping through the Jed chapters to get to Saunders I did see a couple chapters that seem to focus on Carol. So there's another lady.

[B]

Yeah. It did mention that Carol was like one of four.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The. The Saunders one kind of put her up with the rest of them.

[A]

Yep. Yep. I would have. Carol is somebody I would have liked to spend some more time with just to know what's going on. It seemed interesting that it was mostly about people in our choices leaving Franklin and Then, like, we kind of chose most of the choices that involved them not going back, you know?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, Saunders went back and, well, Saunders, look what. What a mess he did.

[A]

Saunders failed the town of Franklin.

[B]

Look what a bad job he did by. By. By betraying his. His essential good boringness and turning to a life of crime.

[A]

Yeah. Just to help his brother, though, you.

[B]

Know, Just to help his hobo poet brother.

[A]

Poor Alfie.

[B]

Poor Alfie, the hobo.

[A]

The hobo poet.

[B]

I mean, I think when we have. Obviously when we have the New Year's party that we're going to have in a few days that we. We just. We just need to read more.

[A]

We're gonna have a party.

[B]

Like, this is a party book. We need to. We need to bring this. We need to have a party about it.

[A]

I. I do think that it would be fun in the right group of people to throw on your, you know, your Webster and Hopkins, whether it's this book or whether it's. I've got your number and just like, have a little fun. Is it interesting experiment in what social reading is, you know, in the.

[B]

And the tonal whiplash between, like, the. The true problems that we were dealing with in each individual section were so different. Like, so much more different than any. I'm trying to.

[A]

Like the.

[B]

I think the only episode we've done with choose your own where we've gone back to the same work, was the Ghost Train stuff.

[A]

Yep. Yep.

[B]

And, you know, obviously the. The endings are different, but I think that this book encompassed, like, a wider range of possible human experience in kind of an interesting way.

[A]

Yep. I kind of like that it has the three perspectives to choose from too.

[B]

Yeah. Like, this is one that I might have to like. I may be inexorably drawn back to this book to just kind of play it on my own.

[A]

It's kind of.

[B]

It told me that I'm allowed, so I might go back and do that.

[A]

Also. I appreciated that unlike some of the choose your owns that we've read, every chapter ended in a choice. Every chapter.

[B]

Yeah. But also all the chapters are long.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I think that. I think that would choose the choose your own thing where it's. Where it's. You read a page on page 37 and then it just says at the bottom, like, go to page 84, where you're just like flipping around to the. The pages that are meant to create space between the pages with choice.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I think that you're responding a bit to an optical illusion created by the publication reality of the choose your own books. But I get it. I like it.

[A]

I like it. Well, thanks everybody for joining us and helping us meet these three lovable characters.

[B]

I am sure in some endings that they're lovable. Each of them are lovable. Hell, I think, I think we probably did to Helen. Helen the dirtiest.

[A]

We did Helen the dirtiest. Yeah.

[B]

Not intentionally, but nope, nope.

[A]

Justice for Helen, I think. But thanks everybody for joining us again. Overdue patreon.com overdue pod is how you can join us for future hangout streams where we don't always do a book like this. Usually they're a Q A and a hangout session. Play some games with us. But this month we wanted to do this so that's what we did. If you have read other game books that are outside of series we've already covered that you think we should know about, send us an email. Overduepodgmail.com we'd love to hear about them. Thanks to Nick Laurentis who composed our theme music. Find us on social media Verdupod Andrew if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[B]

Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet website where we have the schedule for the books that we have, the schedule for the books that we're going to read and also the past record of the books that we have read previously and all and all the links that Craig mentioned just now. Patreon.com overdue pod is the other URL to know about. You could be sitting in on this recording right now voting on the choices that that we made.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Like that Saunders poll was very close. You, you could have been the difference if only you had you had paid us the the podcast alderman and gotten access to the stream graft baby. That's Graph baby.

[A]

That's podcast graft baby.

[B]

Patreon.com overdue pod that's podcast graph baby. You can get access to our Overdue Discord server where people have had lots to say about eggnog this week for reasons that I will not mention. And also our newsletter and ad free episodes and early access to long read projects like the Silly Marillion. We wrapped up with that this week by watching the 1977 Rankin Bass animated the Hobbit which has a lot to do with like various branches of animation history in ways that I was not expecting and that I was happy to talk about. I don't know what else we got. Anything else?

[A]

I can tell you that if you are listening to this on the main feed next week we are reading Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. It's the first Miss Marple book just entering the public domain as well. Marple Madness and the rest. That game is hard to control.

[B]

You have to laugh at Marple Madness. I know that.

[A]

It's hard to control, especially on an NES controller. Yeah, just how I always played it. It's weird to encounter the way it's.

[B]

The way it's meant to be played.

[A]

Let's play with it. Like a ball or something.

[B]

I know it had a track ball, but no, you need to play it with the D pad.

[A]

You gotta play with the D pad. The music is great. So that'll be next and then we'll. We'll post the rest of our January schedule shortly. More updates on our next long read project. All that good stuff. Stuff. Tune in, find out. Join us. Thank you. Have a great 2026. Hope it's. Hope it's better than 2025.

[B]

We're all going to just make the best of. Of the years that we have, I think is the plan. I think that I talked with everybody and we all agreed that this.

[A]

We all agree.

[B]

Well, everybody thinks that we should just. We're just going to make the best of what we've got.

[A]

We will all find our metaphorical painting career in professional re. How about that?

[B]

Sounds great. Okay, everybody, thank you so much for listening. And until we talk to you next year, try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast. Hey, it's Tig Notaro from the Handsome Podcast. And I'm May Martin.

[A]

And I'm Fortune Feimster, also from the Handsome Podcast. And we wanted to let you know that we made a very fun special episode of our show sponsored by Squarespace. That's up now on our YouTube page for you to watch.

[B]

Handsome finally formed a band and recorded a hit song live in the podcast studio. And we documented the whole process for you to watch. It's by far the most ambitious and inspiring moment on our show to date.

[A]

I feel like we can't say much more about it without giving too much away. So just go watch us make complete fools of ourselves and have the best time ever.

[B]

Or become the newest pop sensations. That's right. Go to YouTube.com handsomepod or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

That's YouTube.com handsomepod to hear us record a song live. See you at the Grammys.

[B]

Oh, for sure, buddy. For sure. Get started on your dream website today. Head to squarespace.com handsome for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use.

[A]

The offer Code handsome to save 10%.

[B]

Off your first purchase of a website or domain.